There were big stories in 2019 that look up a lot of oxygen. Brexit was one example as the U.S. hurtled toward a no-deal position with the European Union, and what impact would that have on travel? (It was largely OK in terms of ripple effect, but there were some logistical bumps for sure.) There was considerable momentum behind certain
technological innovations—some that would endure (machine learning) and some that would not (a blockchain-based distribution concept called Winding Tree). A
couple of storylines, however, that initially seemed like anomalies, were early
signs of deeper problems that would play out over time.
The overriding characteristic for business travel in 2019
may have been the palpable confidence in the industry itself. The BTN Corporate
Travel 100 was spending at higher levels than ever. As a group, the top 100 companies
spent more than $11.8 billion in U.S.-originating air spend, the metric by
which that annual BTN list of big corporate travel spenders is compiled, with
companies like Deloitte, IBM, PWC and EY solidly in the top 10, while Amazon
and Google had leapfrogged to new prominence in that arena as well.
U.S. airlines in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Transportation, spiked profits by 25 percent over 2018 and was on a seven year
streak of consecutive earnings increases. STR reported the highest performance
ever for the U.S. hotel industry, with supply reaching 1.9 billion available
room nights that year, and demand clocking in at 1.3 billion room nights. Though growth rates had slowed from previous
years, the industry remained on an upward trajectory and continued to reach
historic highs year on year.
Agencies and corporate travel technologies were pursuing
innovation as well. BCD Travel released its SolutionSource Developers Hub,
which many industry observers looked at has a major step in the right direction
for third-party technologies to finally get more deeply integrated through corporate
travel gates. Midmarket agency ATG Travel was collaborating with IBM Watson to
create a new booking experience that incorporated machine learning and “automated
reasoning,” which we might now call artificial intelligence.
A collaboration between United Airlines, ARC, a blockchain-based startup called BlockSkye and a confidential “large corporate” began a direct booking effort with blockchain-based ledger for payment reported its first successes. The teamwork would turn into a much bigger story by 2023, with the large corporate ultimately revealed as PWC and a new player Kayak for Business getting into the mix. But the seeds were planted in 2019.
A bigger headline at the time was airfare
filing company ATPCO pushing its Next Generation Storefront standard. It worked to reconcile via an ATPCO algorithm what had become
proliferating branded fare types into a comparison display for agencies and
booking tools that organized such fares along like-for-like attributes.
NSG ultimately would take a backseat by 2021, though its
imprint would be seen on Sabre’s 2021 Sabre Red 360 agency desktop rollout. But
in 2019 NSG proved a flashpoint, with a major booster in Delta Air Lines which leveraged
its influence to “force” certain players into incorporating the standard into
their booking displays. TripActions (now Navan) was the poster child for a
public exhibition of this kind of pressure campaign, when Delta pulled its
content from the startup agency because its display failed to adapt to the
emerging standard. TripActions took a month to revamp its flight tools into a configuration
that would meet Delta’s requirements. By the end of 2019 several emerging
booking players—largely those that served small and midmarket clients—were falling
into line, given the possibility they might lose content from a major player if
they didn’t.
Concur was an outlier here—and one that would soon enough be
called out publicly on a BTN webinar by Delta’s Jeff
Lobl as “one large booking tool” that was in need of “modernization.”
Indeed, Delta
had a hand in advising on Concur’s T2 platform that rolled out in 2023.
Dark Skies Brewing for the Industry
If NSG stirred any real controversy, it was in the service
of industry innovation. There were more serious issues brewing in the travel
industry, in corporate travel organizations and more broadly in the larger context
of travel that would have repercussions beyond their initial appearances.
Boeing 737 Max – In October 2018, pilots for Indonesian
carrier Lion Air, which was among the first airlines to take delivery of the
Boeing 737 Max just a year earlier, lost control of a 737 due to what would be investigated
as a failures in the plane’s flight control systems that forced the nose of the
plane downward at high speeds and made it impossible for pilots to take over
manual control. The resulting crash of Lion Air 610 into the Java Sea shortly
after takeoff killed 189 people. A second crash on Ethiopian Air 302 in March
2019 resulted from the same malfunction and killed 157 people. The Boeing 737
Max was grounded worldwide until December 2020.
United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines
all had grounded Max fleets that impacted their capacity and growth plans for
2019. By 2020 those growth plans would be off the table for other reasons. But
airlines throughout 2019 announced and pushed back re-introduction dates for
their Max fleets as confidence levels for the model cratered.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg resigned. He was replaced by
David Calhoun. It would take five more years and whistleblower disclosures to
discover multiple lapses in testing and safety processes at Boeing were underpinning
Max 737 failures. Problems re-emerged in 2024 with a plug door blowing off an
Alaska Air plane midflight, again putting Boeing under scrutiny, torpedoing its
stock price and undermining confidence in the company. Calhoun resigned in 2024.
He was replaced by Robert Kelly Ortberg.
Major European manufacturer Airbus surpassed Boeing in sales
in 2019. Though the safety records of the two manufacturers are similar, Boeing’s
high-profile incidents in 2019 and 2024 influenced safety perceptions for
travelers and the industry.
Association Leadership Controversies – Association
leadership decisions can prove controversial even in the best of times. Members
will have different views of who should be in charge and the direction of the
organizations themselves. BTN ran a single story in 2019 that aired apprehensions
and criticism toward executive search efforts and appointments for both the
Global Business Travel Association and the Association of Corporate Travel
Executives that year, and the lack of transparency in how the organizations
arrived at their final choices.
ACTE chose board president Leigh Bochicchio to lead the
organization into what would prove to be the organization’s final year.
However, Bochicchio until the final weeks of the search was a member of the
executive search committee. The individual who would most directly benefit from
Bochicchio’s advancement into the leadership role was also on the hiring committee.
While the organization claimed it had executed a full-fledged executive recruitment
process with an outside firm, the choice left many observers clamoring for more
transparency.
GBTA did not execute a full recruitment process for its open
leadership position vacated by Mike McCormick, and perhaps more than the ACTE
appointment raised hackles among members by hiring longtime industry firebrand
and GBTA Allied Leadership Council president Scott Solombrino as executive
director.
It was an internal-hire move criticized in general in a BTN
report by a seasoned association management consultant, and according to a veteran
buyer member of both ACTE and GBTA had stirred up acrimony to the point of distraction
from other critical industry issues. The Solombrino hire would prove disastrous
for GBTA in the coming months; at a time when visionary leadership would be
crucial, the organization would be left in crisis communications mode. ACTE
would shutter its organization as it reeled in the early days of the Covid-19
pandemic when it was forced to cancel its annual convention.
Mysterious Pneumonia Reported in China – BTN didn’t
cover the pneumonia-like illness spreading in China until January. But word of
fevers and respiratory disease of an unknown origin had spread into some mainstream
media by very late December, after being investigated by the Chinese health
authorities in the final days of 2019. Airports in China and surrounding countries
began scanning arriving and departing travelers for fever by the first week of
January and by January 31, U.S. airlines would cancel flights to China as would
airlines around the globe in an effort to contain the spread of what had become
known by then as Covid-19.
It’s arguable that no single topic will ever have more dedicated
ink in BTN than did the Covid-19 pandemic, as it shut down travel operations
around the world, isolated and stranded business travelers away from their
homes and, once returned, kept them at home for the better part of two years.
All of that ink would wait until 2020. Covid’s origins,
however, are tied to December 2019, when airlines, hotels, TMCs, business
travel associations and travel managers all were projecting a strong trajectory
for business travel in the months ahead, despite headwinds in terms of
uncertain trade relationships—particularly between China and the U.S.—and the
pending reality of a no-deal Brexit as well as other geopolitical and economic
tensions.
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JANUARY
British Airways tests expanded fare options on Boston and Dubai routes, available
mainly through direct and NDC-enabled channels, to raise pricing flexibility
and compete with low-cost carriers.
Carlson Wagonlit Travel reluctantly pilots access to Lufthansa’s lowest fares via aggregator Travelfusion
after the airline removed these fares from GDSs. CWT sees the move as a
commercially motivated channel shift that creates inefficiencies.
Delta Air Linespulls its content from the TripActions booking platform,
saying that the platform did not meet the carrier’s display requirements. Soon
after, TripActions unveils a new flight booking platform endorsed by Delta that allows
travelers to easily compare and book flight options.
TripActions works together with payment tool Divvy to
integrate travel booking and expense management.
New Zealand-based Serko grows its North American
footprint by acquiring U.S.-based expense management provider InterplX
Inc., securing in‑market software, support capabilities, and SaaS technology to
improve its travel‑and‑expense offering across the region.
FEBRUARY
Corporate travel demand starts 2019 strong, with major U.S.
carrier reporting large year-over-year increases in business bookings and
showing optimism despite macroeconomic concerns.
Lufthansa initiates biometric boarding at Miami International Airport. This
would enable passengers to use facial recognition cameras to board flights in
under two seconds. The carrier plans to take the project to more U.S. airports
and add biometric terminals.
With outcomes uncertain two months before the U.K.’s planned
departure from the EU, travel managers face major planning challenges. They take limited precautions amid
concerns of travel disruption, cost surges, and regulatory changes in
case of a no-deal Brexit.
American Express Meetings & Events expands its Meetings Marketplace through partnerships with mobile app
Attendify and registration website builder Splash.
Aventri uses VenueBook’s direct booking technology to
revamp its strategic meetingsplatform. It would allow event planners
to source, negotiate, and book non-traditional venues directly in Aventri’s
dashboard.
United Airlines—with the Airlines Reporting
Corporation; a large corporate client; and Blockskye—has successfully tested a blockchain-based reporting and settlement system for direct
flight bookings. They would eventually like to expand live testing and include
other airlines and suppliers.
Cvent CEO Reggie Aggarwal talks to BTN about his
company’s plans to apply AI and blockchain technologies into corporate travel
and event management.
MARCH
In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the U.K. and EU have
agreed to continue air travel rights through March 2020. This news
eases concerns for around 164 million air passengers between the U.K.
and EU member states each year.
Industry experts observe that hotel firms are rapidly
launching and acquiring new brands to fill gaps in service and pricing tiers,
target diverse travelers, improve loyalty programs, and extend their
global reach.
United Airlines launches a meetings portal within its Jetstream platform for corporate
clients to quickly access flexible discounts, automatically apply transient
agreements, track related bookings, and earn amenity funds for attendee travel.
Certify and Chrome Riverhave merged under a new $1 billion+ holding company backed
by K1 Investment Management. They serve both SMBs and large enterprises
while maintaining separate brands to better compete with industry leader Concur.
Abacus creates Abacus Travel, a booking tool offering flights, hotels, cars, and rail, to
allow for real-time policy compliance and seamless expense tracking. It’s the
company’s first major product launch under its parent, Certify.
Amex GBT introduces a suite of tech upgrades,
like a benchmarking tool that features traveler well-being
metrics, AI-powered booking recommendations, and hotel re-shopping.
APRIL
Fragmentation and consumerization drive travel management companies like Amex GBT, BCD,
and CWT to invest more in innovation and partner with startups to
deliver custom solutions for business travel programs.
Airbnb’s sizeable investment in India-based OYO Hotels strengthens
both companies’ expansion in fast-growing Indian and Chinese markets, raises
competition with traditional hotels, and boosts OYO’s corporate travel segment
aligned with Airbnb for Work.
Delta aims to resume operations in London Gatwick in 2020 with flights from Boston and JFK,
while its partnership with Korean Air adds new flights between the U.S. and
Asia. However, COVID-19 delayed those plans to May 2023.
TravelBank has released a new flight shopping display based on Next Generation
Storefront standards that uses ATPCO’s star ratings to provide travelers with a
more transparent sorting of fares by class, restrictions, amenities, and price.
Washington State Senate passes a bill that grants consumers rights to access,
correct, and delete personal data, while imposing obligations on businesses to
adopt reasonable security practices and allowing the Attorney General’s Office
to enforce violations, with civil penalties up to $7,500 per violation.
After recently signing a partnership deal with Amex GBT,
travel management startup Lola gets $37 million in Series C funding to double its workforce and focus
on tech development.
Boeing 737 Max aircraft remains grounded for several more weeks as Boeing upgrades
its anti-stall software pending FAA review. North American airlines continue to
adjust their schedules and deploy alternative aircraft to cover affected
flights.
BCD and CWT are each moving their fragmented
energy, resources, and marine (ERM) travel content and support into centralized global platforms. Amex GBT also strives
to deliver a consistent global ERM platform, which it believes will help with
scalability.
MAY
ATPCO’s Next Generation Storefront (NGS) standard, designed to help
airlines better display and differentiate fare options through third-party
channels, is gaining traction. Delta leads the adoption efforts, while
industry figures debate refinements like alternatives to the current star-based
rating system.
Travel and payment providers advance the use of virtual cards through mobile wallets. The industry moves
toward standardization, broader NFC adoption, and improving reliability and
back-office processes.
SAP Concur faces leadership and organizational changes. Jim Lucier becomes company president, as Mike Eberhard retires. Additionally, Christal
Bemont advances to the role of chief revenue officer.
U.K.-based Corporate Traveller has partnered with BitPay to become the U.K.’s first business TMC to let
SME clients pay for bookings with bitcoin and bitcoin cash, settling payments
within two business days.
Travel startup Pana raises $10 million in Series A funding to develop its focus on
guest travel, especially for job candidates and other non-employee travelers.
Pana seeks to combine its technology and offline agent support, deepen TMC
partnerships, and explore use cases like small meetings and events.
JUNE
Controversy ensued for corporate travel groups ACTE and GBTA in appointing new executives from within their boards. Those in
the industry think about conflicts of interest, governance transparency,
and potential fallout in member trust and event attendance.
Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) rules taking effect in
the European Economic Area on September 14 are expected to disrupt corporate
travel payments, specifically those involving plastic cards. This is due to
complex, country-specific interpretations, with virtual and lodge cards likely
less affected but still facing uncertainty.
InterContinental Hotels Group debuts Atwell Suites, an upper-midscale, all-suites brand
targeting “opportunity seekers” blending business and leisure travel,
with a 50/50 guest mix and amenities positioned between extended-stay and
select-service hotels. IHG also rolls out updated designs for Holiday Inn,
Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites.
Hobo Hotel completes the first hotel booking on a public blockchain using Winding Tree’s platform.
It shows advancements toward decentralized, secure, and open-source travel
distribution, with support for fiat, credit, and cryptocurrency payments.
Mint House, a tech-driven, apartment-style
hospitality startup for business travelers, raises $15 million in Series A
funding to introduce its short-term rental model into 10 new U.S. cities,
vying to become a trusted corporate lodging alternative to traditional hotels and
Airbnb.
JULY
Several airlines pilot the International Air
Transport Association’s New Distribution Capability standard with select TMCs to
enable more personalized, retail-like fare and ancillary distribution. They aim
for wider adoption and “critical mass” by 2020.
India-based OYO Hotels & Homes wants to invest $300 million in the U.S. to scale its hotel
footprint, talent, and infrastructure. They’re backed by Airbnb, SoftBank
Vision Fund, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia and Hero Enterprise.
Canada’s new Air Passenger Protection Regulations require airlines to
compensate passengers up to $2,400 for flight disruptions within the carriers’
control—applying to all flights to, from, and within Canada—while exempting
delays or cancellations caused by safety-related mechanical issues.
Deem announces it will discontinue its Deem Expense system, transitioning clients
to Certify. Meanwhile, the company will keep focusing on its Work Fource travel
platform and integrating with various expense providers via its Open Expense
Alliance.
American Airlines and Qantas have received
tentative U.S. DOT approval for their long-awaited joint venture, enabling revenue sharing and coordinated
services between the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand. New routes and deeper
integration are being planned, pending final approval after public commentary.
With the Boeing 737 Max being grounded since March 2019, a recent
GBTA survey reveals that travelers and buyers are worried about flying the
aircraft once it returns to service. TMCs and booking platforms offer aircraft
type data at point of sale so that users can implement profile preferences
or policy rules. But aircraft swaps close to departure could still happen, and
most companies haven’t yet changed policies to block 737 Max bookings.
AUGUST
More travel managers struggle with hidden resort fees, as attorneys general in all 50 states and DC
investigate the growing use of “drip pricing.” Legal action against Marriott spotlights deceptive practices, yet the fragmented hotel ownership structure
and limited regulatory involvement leave managers to rely on traveler vigilance
amid ongoing market and platform efforts to raise transparency.
Venue options for meetings have been shifting from traditional hotels towards
flexible, purpose-built spaces and tech-enabled platforms. Instead of directly
competing with them, hotels continue to invest in and collaborate with
alternative venues. BTN speaks with three meetings professionals about their
sourcing strategies.
British Airways receives a £183.39 million fine
from the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a 2018 data breach that compromised nearly 500,000 customers’
personal data via a fraudulent site redirect. Following that, ICO
declares a proposed $123 million fine against Marriott
International for a data breach coming from Starwood systems, which Marriott failed to detect
post-acquisition. Ultimately, that incident compromised the personal data of
339 million customers, including 30 million in Europe.
The prolonged Boeing 737 Max grounding intensifies questions across the
airline industry about global regulatory trust, operational complexity, and
passenger confidence. Airline executives warn that inconsistent international
approvals could undermine the aviation system’s credibility, and business
travelers are already hesitant to choose the aircraft type.
France plans to have an “eco tax” of €1.50 to €18 on outbound flights starting in
2020. The move draws criticism from Air France, which argues the tax
will affect competitiveness without directly supporting aviation
sustainability. Analysts note it aligns with a growing European trend of taxing
air travel for environmental reasons.
SEPTEMBER
Southwest Airlines says that by mid-2020, it will
begin offering full booking capabilities in GDSs through new agreements with Travelport and Amadeus.
SAP Concur’s A.G. Lambert explores how AI transforms corporate travel. In an op-ed, he notes
how AI is balancing cost control and employee satisfaction, automating tasks,
enhancing compliance, and enabling personalized travel experiences for both
travelers and managers.
Corporate hotel rate negotiations for 2020 are swaying in
buyers’ favor due to slowing ADR growth. Buyers are pushing for lower rate
increases, targeting hidden fees, and leveraging alternative lodging options
like Airbnb for negotiating power against still-strong but stabilizing hotel occupancy.
Hotel giants Accor, Hilton, IHG, and Marriott’s joint $50
million investment in meetings tech platform Groups360 has raised antitrust concerns over potential collusion, exclusivity,
and data sharing. Groups360 emphasizes it has safeguards in place to
protect sensitive pricing data and prevent anti-competitive behavior.
European business travel stakeholders brace for the
potential disruptions intended to start on September 14, 2019 as Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) becomes mandatory for
e-commerce payments in the EU. They believe added verification requirements may
complicate corporate travel bookings despite some exemptions, grace periods,
and ongoing upgrades to authentication protocols like 3DS.
BCD Travelpurchases long-time affiliate Adelman and wants
to keep it as a standalone operation with its current leadership.
Following a series of acquisitions, U.K.-based Reed &
Mackay buys Business Travel Direct as part of its strategic growth. The subsidiary would run as a
stand-alone business under managing director Julie Oliver for that time.
OCTOBER
Several sources familiar with Googles’ plans told The
Beat the search giant had plans
to enable corporate identifiers on Google Flights, thereby allowing
business travelers to shop corporate negotiated fares on the metasearch.
However, those predictions did not materialize.
JetBlue prepares to take on the “obscene” premium
fares between the U.S. and London as the carrier prepares
to launch its first European flights in 2021, which it did do in August 21.
Delta Air Lines and Latam announce
partnership, with Delta
taking a 20 percent stake in the Brazilian airline. Latam exited its previous
partnership with American Airlines the Oneworld alliance. The partnership will
built on Delta’s joint venture with AeroMexico, further connecting North and
Sound America. Delta will exit
stake in Gol by December.
Facial
recognition and biometric identifiers become the vision of future traveler
mobility across airports and border crossing, immigration processes. The World
Travel & Tourism Council identified 53 efforts in play in 2019 to
implement biometrics across the U.S., Southeast Asia, the EU and the Caribbean.
NOVEMBER
American and Southwest airlines push
back Max 737 return to March, after previously suspending service on the Boeing
aircraft until February 8.
BCD Travel opens its SolutionsSource
technology marketplace to developers at “authorized” third-parties. The
upshot is that marketplace members have access to the same APIs BCD uses to
power its own core solutions and, therefore, can develop deeper integrations.
Ohio-based travel management company ATG uses natural
language processing, data retrieval, automated reasoning and machine learning
capabilities of IBM
Watson to deliver booking recommendations.
United Airlinesannounces
plans to pursue Brazilian carrier Azul and bring it into a four-way joint
venture partnership with Avianca and Copa, as United sees opportunity in
Latam leaving its AA partnership. The carrier also increased its regional
service within the U.S. via two-cabin, 50-seat Bombardier CRJ-530s.
Accorexpands
its co-working brand Wojo, which it launched in 2015, beyond France and
into Barcelona. Accor had plans to create 1,200 Wojo locations in Europe by
2022. The Covid-19 pandemic will de-rail that plan, but Wojo as of 2024 had 400
locations.
JetBlue
and Norwegian plan to interline; however, the move never materialized.
Norwegian changed its strategy after Covid-19 to operate mostly short-haul
flights within Europe.
IAG inks agreement to buy Spanish
airline Air Europa for 1 billion euros with plans to build Madrid into a European
hub. The acquisition plan is scrapped in 2021and re-upped in 2023 and fully abandoned
2024.
DECEMBER
United CEO Oscar Munoz announces plans to step down
in May and be replace by then-United president Scott Kirby. He had taken
the reins in 2015 after a federal corruption investigation of prior CEO Jeff
Smisek. Munoz’s early tenure faced serious challenges highlighted by a heart
transplant surgery and viral video of the airline forcibly removing Dr. David Dao
from a flight. After that, however, United
saw a significant turnaround under Munoz and Kirby, strengthening its
network from its hubs and improving operational and financial performance
ARC CEO Mike Premoannounces
plans to retire at end of 2020; Lauri Reishus, then-executive VP and
COO, succeeded him as the first female CEO of ARC.
American Express Global Business Travel president Philippe
Cherequeannounces
plans to depart the organization by end of March 2020 to join Certares, the
investment company that led private equity group that holds a 50 percent stake
in GBT. Andrew Crawley slated to join Amex GBT in the newly created role
of chief commercial officer in April.
By the end of 2019 TripActions, TravelBank, Upside,
Psngr1, WhereTo and AmTrav each had adapted the Next
Generation Storefront standard to their booking displays. Next Generation
Storefront was announced in late 2018 and led by ATPCO, but with major booster
Delta Air Lines, which leveraged its content with emerging players in order to
drive adoption.
A cluster of mysterious
pneumonia cases, mostly in the Hubei province of China, was first reported
to the local government on Dec. 27, 2019 and published on Dec. 31. Some
airports in Asia begin screening passengers for fevers prior to boarding and upon
arrival.
_______________________________________________
Editor’s Note: Monthly highlights were composed by BTN editorial engagement manager Gianna Song with the help of AI tools.
_______________________________________________
Elizabeth West is the vice president of Content for the
BTN Group. She has reported on the business travel and meetings industries for
24 years. Beth was editor-in-chief of Meeting News from 2006 to 2008 and
director of content solutions for ProMedia Travel from 2008 to 2011, when
ProMedia was acquired by Northstar Travel Media and merged with BTN. She became
editor-in-chief of BTN in 2015 and editorial director of the BTN Group in
2019.
